Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Find Your Political Antipode

American voters seem more polarized now than ever before. The Washington Post has therefore decided to try to foster more understanding between the two sides of the political debate by releasing a tool to find the nearest county that voted the exact opposite to how the people voted in your county.

The Washington Post's Political Polar Opposites map finds the nearest county that voted the most unlike how people voted where you live in the 2016 Presidential election. If you share your location with the Post's map it will drop a pin on the map to show you a nearby county where the people voted almost exactly opposite to the election result in your county.

The map also shows you the nearest county which voted the most like your county. The map is a fun little tool and it is quite interesting to discover which counties near you voted the most like and unlike how your county voted. It would be a lot more interesting if the map also included some demographic information on the wealth, education levels and ages of the identified county populations. This would allow the user to explore a little more some of the potential reasons why voters in the polar opposite counties voted so differently in the 2016 Presidential election.